Engines, including diesel engines, gasoline engines, natural gas engines, and other engines known in the art, exhaust a complex mixture of pollutants. The pollutants are composed of gaseous and solid material, including particulate matter and sulfur compounds.
Due to heightened environmental concerns, engine exhaust emission standards have become increasingly stringent over the years, and the amount of pollutants emitted from an engine may be regulated depending on the type, size, and/or class of engine. One method that has been implemented by engine manufacturers to comply with the regulation of particulate matter and sulfur compounds exhausted to the environment has been to remove these pollutants from the exhaust flow of an engine with filters. But, extended use of such filters can cause the pollutants to build up in components of the filters, thereby causing filter functionality and engine performance to decrease. One way to extend usage of the filters is to regenerate the filters through application of elevated temperatures. Regenerating filters through conventional methods, however, may take up to eight hours or longer, depending on, for example, the size of the filter, the configuration and material composition of filter media, and the type of heat source used. Such a long regeneration period may be undesirable in some machine environments. In addition, the temperatures required for regeneration may be in excess of 500° C. At such temperatures, soot contained within the filter may spontaneously combust, resulting in damage to the filter and/or its components.
An alternative method of removing built-up pollutants from a filter may be to remove the clogged filter from the machine in which it is installed and direct a flow of gas through the filter in a reverse direction. Although effective, the filter may be large, heavy, and difficult to remove. This makes it cumbersome, time consuming, and dangerous to service the filter in this manner.
International Publication No. WO 2010/037406 (“the '406 publication”) teaches a different method and system for regenerating a filter. In particular, the '406 publication discloses using at least one electric arc discharge to generate a pressure wave that dislodges particulate matter from the filter while the filter remains in place.
Although the '406 publication may teach a simpler way to regenerate a filter, the system described therein requires the use of a plurality of electrodes that are distributed within the filter media. These electrodes increase the overall cost and complexity of the system. In addition, because the electrodes are embedded within the filter media, the system may only be operable with filters designed specifically for operation with the system disclosed in the '406 publication.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.